Rambles about stuff I like.

Writing early in the morning means I’ll write about goals.

It’s nice and early in the morning. I tell ya, there’s something magical about getting up in the dark and watching the sun rise.

Anyhoo, yesterday was my first day back in the gym in a long time. I took it easy though – ordinarily, I’d do 10 sets of barbell squats, which is pretty grueling, and then pile on more leg work on top of that. This would usually mean that my legs would be sore for days, and I’d stumble around like Frankenstein’s monster, shuffling about on my dulled meat popsicles. But instead, I took it easy and just did 5 sets of 5 reps of squats. But, instead of more leg work, I did 5 sets of deadlifts.

It’s been about 4 months since I’ve done any deadlifts, as I managed to strain both my glutes last time I did. So I’ve been gradually building back my strength in my hamstrings so that I could do deadlifts. And yesterday I did! Oh man, do I ever love deadlifts! For those who lift, it’s probably everyone’s favorite lift – simply because it’s the lift that lets you move the most weight.

Although I only stayed at 135lbs, because I didn’t want to blow out my butt muscles first day back, this is what I felt like:

Anyhoo, I’ll be back at the gym today, doing stupid bench – which is my worst lift, but that’s why I keep going back, to improve.

Recently, I’ve been reading Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. It’s probably the first and best book about goals. While reading it, I’m struck by how exactly the same the advice that Hill gives lines up with what Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn and similar people are saying.

When it comes to goals, you’ve got to write down your goals, give your goals a deadline, make a plan to achieve that goal, then get to work on your plan everyday. More than that, you’ve got to practice positive self-talk – your subconscious will accept whatever instructions you give it, so if you’re constantly saying to yourself, “Oh, I can’t do that…”, “I never win…” or “I’m such a failure…” then your mind has no choice but to believe it. After all, this is what YOU are telling yourself, so your mind will accept these statements without question.

A big part of goals is therefore feeding yourself positive information in connection with your goals. If you can train your mind to say, “I know I can do this…”, “I will succeed no matter what…” or “I wont let anything stop me until I reach my goals.” Then eventually, this positive self talk will take root and you WILL achieve your goals.

The other thing that’s necessary is visualizing your goals. This is sort of tough for me, and may be the next step I have to take to really supercharge my goals. If you can visualize yourself having already achieved your goal, then your subconscious will fix this image in your mind and get to work making it a reality.

Now, this may sound like superstitious mumbo jumbo. But that’s too quick a dismissal. Napolean Hill studied over 1000 successful people to come up with these steps for success. And these steps are constantly being repeated by the most successful self-help gurus of yesterday and today. Even the much maligned “The Secret” repeats the same information, although it does place a bit more emphasis on visualization.

Make no mistake, one key to achieving your goals is hard, daily work. But visualization and positive self-talk will also help with goal achievement.

When it comes to goals, I think that one should aim to master goals in the following areas: Health, Love, Knowledge/Work, Fortune and Fame, in that order. If one achieves all there goals in each of these areas, there can be no doubt that this person is a tremendous success.